Secrets and Lies
by pandorabox82
Summary: When both Derek and Spencer become suspicious about the events concerning Erin Strauss's "death", they go searching for the answers they seek. This will lead them to unlikely new friends, in a quest for the closure their team so justly deserves.
1. Chapter 1

Derek stopped in front of the wall that held all the pictures of their comrades who had fallen in the line of duty. Recently, it had been Emily's picture up there, staring at him in reproach. Her picture had gone up within hours of her 'death'. And yet, here it was, one week after Erin had left them, and still her picture was not up on that damnable wall. Reaching out, he touched the empty space where she should be staring out at him from, and he curled his hand into a fist. It was hard not to punch the wall, not to give in to his anger.

He felt someone come up behind him, and he turned to see Reid. It looked like he hadn't slept much in the week since her funeral, in the week they had found that they couldn't move on without her. She had been more like a mother to their team than he had realized, and it hurt to know that she was gone. "She's not coming back, Derek. She really died."

"I know, I know. I just don't know why her picture isn't here yet."

A soft cough had them both looking over at Rossi. Derek felt his lips purse a little as he looked at the man. There was something about his grief that didn't feel right to him, and he narrowed his eyes. "She didn't want to be remembered that way. And I don't think we could bear walking past her picture every day, thinking about how we failed her."

"I suppose. Did you keep her chip?" Reid cocked his head to the side imperceptibly, something Derek knew he did when he was profiling someone.

"No, I let her children bury it with her." He looked down and to the left, which Derek knew was one of his tells, and the hackles on the back of his neck suddenly stood at attention. "At least, at least she'll have some closure, once the bones are identified as his."

They both nodded in tandem. "Well, I have some work to catch up on," Derek replied tonelessly, quirking one eyebrow at Reid, hoping he would get the message. The tiny dip of his chin told him that he did, and so Derek turned on his heel and made his way over to his office. Heavily, he sat behind his desk and buried his face in his hand.

"She's alive."

He looked up into Reid's brown eyes, noticing the sad look there. "I know, kid. I could tell just by the way he reacted. But I'll bet you dollars to donuts that her picture will be up there tomorrow." Reid nodded as he took a seat in the chair in front of his desk. "So, where do we go from here? I mean, Baby Girl is nearly inconsolable. She thinks it was her fault that she didn't catch that monster before he had hurt us again. I guess Erin was confiding in her, telling her a little bit about her struggle, and that really humanized her to Penelope."

Reid sighed. "At least Rossi gets the opportunity to see the love of his life once more. Now Maeve is becoming the ghost of a memory to me." His lips turned down in a frown and Derek reached across the desk, holding out his hand. It didn't take long for Reid to clasp it, letting the tears fall. "I still miss her, Derek. So much."

"Curtis stole a lot of precious things from us. We need to avenge her and make everything right. And that includes bringing Erin Strauss home." Reid nodded and squeezed his hand, a tiny smile flickering across his face. "Let's go check out her office. Maybe we can get some clues from there."

"They haven't packed it up already?" his friend asked in surprise.

"No. I thought I heard Rossi mention something about her kids coming by next week to do it." Standing, he went over to his door. "Coming, kid?"

"Right behind you, Morgan." Together, they went over to where Strauss's office was, peeking in the door. The outer office was already stripped bare of any personalization, and Derek frowned a little. "I thought you said…"

"It wasn't like this yesterday." As he watched, a thin, mousy, woman bustled out of Erin's inner sanctum. "Excuse me, what's going on here? Agent Rossi told me that Chief Strauss's children were planning on taking care of her office sometime next week."

The woman set her box aside and looked up at him. "Agent Morgan. I'm glad you're here. Erin left behind some things that she wanted you to have. And you're Dr. Reid, right?" He nodded. "Good, there's something here for you, too."

"I'm sorry, but who are you again?"

"Oh, sorry, I'd forgotten that no one here knows me. I'm Eleanor Prince. Your Director asked me to take care of things here, since that's what I'm good at." She smiled at them before sashaying back inside Erin's office.

Derek followed her, not really trusting her to be alone in that private space. A lot of the personal touches that had made the room Erin's were already missing. Her diplomas were off the wall, the pictures of her family missing from the shelves. "Where's her tree?"

"The bonsai? Agent Rossi wanted that, so I gave it to him. I figured it would help him deal with being separated from her." There was something about the way that she said those words that further cemented Derek's resolve to find out what was happening in the situation. "So, just give me one more second here."

Reid joined him, standing close as Eleanor dug through the boxes, obviously looking for something she felt was important. "Do you need any help?" the younger man asked and she shook her head vigorously. "Are you sure you know what you're looking for?"

"Yes, Dr. Reid." Her voice was sharp and Reid made a face at her back. "See, here they are!" She held out two legal sized envelopes towards them. "This is what she wanted you to have," she said softly, her face relaxing into a sad expression.

"Thanks," Derek said gruffly as he took the envelopes, turning on his heel. "Come on, Reid." Together, they left Erin's office and he stalked back over to his own office, plopping down in his chair and leaning back to look at the ceiling.

"Are you going to open your package from Strauss?" Reid asked as he took a seat, slipping his finger beneath the seal and starting to open it.

"I suppose." He pulled out his knife and made quick work of the seal. Blowing into the envelope, he held it open and pulled out two pieces of paper. Her delicate, beautiful, writing stared up at him and he sighed, wishing she was in the room, reading her letter to him. "I got a letter."

"I got a key."

"Really? To what?" He looked up from the paper, and saw Reid holding up a shiny silver key.

"I have no idea. She didn't leave me any sort of explanation. This is really weird, Morgan. Even for her. Do you think she came back here, after she 'died' and set this up for us, do you?"

"Reid, we aren't even sure if she did survive. All we have to go on is the fact that we think something is up due to the fact that her picture isn't on the wall and Rossi is acting really suspicious. This could all be a wild goose chase."

"But after Emily, we have to explore every option. We're not going to let them lie to us anymore. That wouldn't be fair to us or to her and her memory." The ferocity with which Reid spoke startled him and he nodded slightly, once more reaching out and patting his hand. "We have to get to the bottom of this."

"And we will. I promise you that." Reid nodded once and then reached out to clasp his hand. "Reid?"

"We're making a solemn oath. Neither of us rest until we find out the truth of what happened to Erin Elizabeth Strauss." Derek nodded and then shook his hand firmly. "Until we find the truth."

"So say we all."


	2. Chapter 2

Reid went back to work, carrying the key in his hand. Derek sighed and stared at the letter in his hands. He didn't want to read the words that were written there, didn't want to confirm her death through the words she had left behind.

Finally, though, he glanced back down at the paper. Her words were gentle, full of praise for him, and he felt himself tearing up a little as he found out how much she had regarded him. He owed it to her to figure out why Rossi was acting so strangely, why no one seemed to want to acknowledge her life or her death.

Roughly, he pushed away from his desk and let out a deep breath. The first, and best, place to start was with Penelope, and he stood up, a determined smile on his face. Heading to the bullpen, he passed Rossi and fought not to narrow his eyes, to tip the man off to the fact that he didn't quite trust him any longer.

"Eleanor mentioned that we'd be getting things from Erin. Did you get yours?" he asked, trying to gauge the reaction he gave, knowing that he had received her bonsai tree. Rossi nodded shortly, looking away from him. "So, spill. What did she leave you?"

"Her books. She collected rare books throughout her life, and I was lucky enough to receive her favorites. The children got the ones that didn't mean as much to us." He rubbed his goatee lightly, and Morgan knew there was more to it than that.

"Maybe I could come over and take a look. I want to get to know her more, even if it is in death." There was a soft truth to his words and he stared at Rossi, wondering what reply he would receive.

"Perhaps. I'll have to see." Rossi looked down into his coffee cup and then back up at him. "If you'll excuse me, the caffeine is calling my name." He turned on his heel and stalked off towards the coffee nook and Morgan just stared at his back, wondering why he had lied to him.

"Hey, Sugar. What has you so pensive this morning?"

He turned to look at his best friend, smiling sadly. "Can I talk to you for a little bit?"

"My ear is always open to you, you know that. Come on." She threaded her arm through his and led him to her office. Shutting the door behind them, he heard her click the lock into place and he nodded slightly as he strode over to her desk, sitting on an empty spot. "So, I figured you wanted to keep this somewhat quiet. What is on your mind, Derek?"

"I need you to look up some information for me. And you cannot ask any questions. This is something Reid and I are going to do on our own, because we could get into a lot of trouble doing what we're about to do. I do not want to drag you into something that could potentially cost you your job."

"That sounds all 'Winter is coming', Derek. Surely it's not as dire as that."

"It has the potential. So, what I need you to look up, at the moment, is any and all information you have on an Eleanor Prince. She works for us, and she was cleaning out Strauss's office today."

"What? I thought her children were going to do that!"

"They were. And then this. It's just a little too weird for us. You know?"

She nodded quickly and began to tap away at her keyboard, quickly calling up the woman's dossier. "All right, it looks like she worked for us up until the death of her husband in 2008. After that, she transferred out of the Bureau and into the U.S. Marshals."

"What did she do there?" he asked, intrigued by this bit of news.

"I'm not sure. The office she worked out of was Albuquerque, which seems like a really odd place…" Her voice trailed off as she began to dig deeper, and she quickly typed and scribbled at a notepad next to her. Finally, she looked up at him, her brow furrowed. "Why would someone who used to work for the Witness Protection Program even come within five hundred miles of Erin's office? Seriously, Derek Morgan, you have got to read me in on this, otherwise I will ferret out every last iota of information that you uncover and find out what you're really doing here."

He shook his head as someone began to knock heavily on her door. "Why don't you go see who that is?"

"You are not going to put me off so easily, Derek," she hissed as she got up and stomped over to her door, unlocking it before wrenching it open. "What?" she growled.

"Whoa, Kitten, who put you…" Rossi stepped into the room and narrowed his eyes at Derek. "Is he bothering you, Penelope?"

She looked between Derek and Rossi, quickly reading their body language. Derek was proud of her doing that, it showed that she had been paying attention to him when he mentioned that you could tell things about people by watching them. "No, Dave. He just gave me a particularly bad piece of news. What can I do for you?"

"I was just wondering if you had some time to help me find a good picture of Erin. It seems like no one can find the one she took for her identification badge, and there have been a few rumblings about why she's not up on the memorial wall. I really didn't want to overlook her wishes like this, but sometimes you have to keep the people happy."

The look he gave Derek startled him and he took a step back. "One should never go against someone's wishes. Leave her off the damn wall if it's so important to you. I'll always keep her candle burning in my heart, anyway." He spun around on his heel and stalked from the room, seething with anger, armed with new information to tell Reid.

"So, what's going on today?" He stopped and looked at Blake, a frown coming to his lips. "That bad?" He nodded. "I can't get past her death, either. You're not alone in being angry at John Curtis for snuffing out her candle too soon."

"Like you even liked her, Blake. Just because you made up for a total of five minutes does not make you her best friend. I was the one who took her to rehab. I was the one who stood beside her when she came back to the office." He narrowed his eyes as he fixed his gaze on Reid. "Come on, kid. We're getting out of here."

Reid nodded and jumped up, following in his wake. Derek was certain that he gave Blake that little half-wave of his that he typically did when Derek offended someone and he wanted to smooth the ruffled feathers. "Hey, wait up! We're taking the stairs?"

"Yes," he said shortly, knowing he needed to work off some of the anger that was still pent up in his body. "And don't go apologizing to Blake for me. She needed someone to tell her off about her pity party." Derek took the stairs two at a time until he was at the bottom, waiting for Reid so that they could head out to the parking lot.

"So, where are we going?"

"My place. And we need to talk."

"All right, then let's head out."


End file.
